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Oversleeper's Aid
Clocky becomes a hit overnight
By Katharine Dunn

Clocky may not be pretty, but it's the belle of the ball. Since Media Lab graduate student Gauri Nanda built Clocky as part of an industrial-design course last fall and posted photos on the Web, the shag carpet-covered alarm clock on wheels has become a media sensation. The device was featured on Good Morning America ("I demoed Clocky on a set that they built especially for him," says Nanda), on the front page of the Boston Globe, and in dozens of publications worldwide. Nanda has filed for a patent and says she expects that Clockys will be available within a year for about $30 each.

Clocky is designed to make oversleeping nearly impossible. When the alarm goes off and its owner presses the snooze button, Clocky rolls off the bedside table and wheels over to a different spot, where it waits to sound the alarm anew. "The idea is that he plays a sort of hide-and-seek game with you to ensure you wake up," says Nanda. Clocky isn't cutting-edge technology--it's a microprocessor, motors, an axle, and a battery inside a foam-and-wood skeleton covered in brown shag carpet.

But Nanda attributes its popularity to its simplicity, and to its attempt to solve a common problem.